ESPN suffered a classic case of mistaken identity during Wednesday night’s St. Louis Cardinals-Atlanta Braves game.
In the seventh inning of the showdown between the two NL teams, ESPN cut to a shot of Braves pitcher Kyle Wright in the dugout. Unfortunately, Wright was only shown because the network thought he was actually teammate Max Fried, as evidenced by their graphic. Take a look.
https://twitter.com/gifs_baseball/status/1544852731713683457
That is a pretty embarrassing screw-up for ESPN, especially since Fried had just gotten significant airtime over the last couple of hours. Fried was the starter for the Braves and threw six shutout innings before exiting.
Wright did not pitch for Atlanta on Wednesday, having started in Monday’s series opener against St. Louis. For reference, here is what Fried, a left-hander as opposed to the righty Wright, actually looks like.
Happy Max Fried day for all who celebrate 😍 pic.twitter.com/flnEe5l2oO
— Erin Overpeck (@mamabearE84) July 6, 2022
Fried ended up with the win after the Braves closed out the game by a 3-0 final score, so he is probably OK with being misidentified this one time. As for ESPN, at least their mix-up was not nearly as as mortifying as the one that this rival network once made.
